Is there much knowledge out there regarding the Kamidake Onsen books? From what I understood, those are the Kajishima Doujin which aren't tied to a specific Tenchi series, right? Actually, if you could explain the different doujin series in general, it'd help a hell of a lot.

MASAKI KAJISHIMA DOUJIN EXPLAINED

tldr; Anything published by Kajishima Onsen (do NOT confuse with Kamidake Onsen) is all canon/MK content. Anything else is often, at best, a mix.

WARNING, some NSFW links below

Oh wow, how such short questions can give birth to such involved answers :/ I hope you see why it took a while to answer this.

Simply put, afaik all of Masaki Kajishima’s (MK) content fits into one single coherent multiverse, where all his series are all “connected at the corners” to each other, even if they are in different dimensions.

He only directly worked on one single Tenchi continuity and clearly considers that his story, the original one starring the main Tenchi-cast is known as Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki, even if he’s obligatorily credited as “Original Character Design”/”Creator” or such in other tangent Tenchi works.

That’s the one where Tenchi has Light Hawk Wings, where silver-haired space pirate Kagato, “octopus head” Dr. Clay, and Z were the main antagonists, his mother is Kiyone Masaki, Washu/Tsunami/Tokimi are goddesses, and his extended family includes Lady Seto and Minaho, Mihoshi has a brother named Misao, etc.

MK has created regular series such as Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki, Photon: The Idiot Adventures, Tenchi Muyo! GXP, Tenchi Muyo: War On Geminar, Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure, and Paradise War. He also has created hentai series such as Spaceship Agga Ruter (comedy), Masquerade (drama), Anata Dake Konbanwa, and My Harvest GAP☆P.

Tenchi Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo, Ai Tenchi Muyo, the 3 movies (TMiL 1 + 2, Daughter of Darkness), and the 2 series of Okuda mangas, storywise, have absolutely nothing to do with him, this storyline, or this multiverse.

In addition, he has written novels and doujins that expand on the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki universe. At my last count, that was 3 True Tenchi Novels and 14 GXP novels, still ongoing as of 2017. Idk the exact doujin count, I’d estimate with the diagram above and a few missing ones, more than 90 right now.

Here is where it may get confusing. Everything Kajishima has drawn or wrote himself, including pages in doujins, can be considered canon -- but not everything in these doujin are his. It gets rather easy to see what his drawing style is though, to pick things out.

The Role of Doujin in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki

Back in the 1980s, Doujin was among the cheapest mediums to get published as an artist. Masaki Kajishima has ALWAYS outputted or contributed to doujin and it probably was how he was discovered in the first place. Indeed, he was sketching out and displaying character designs for what would become the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki cast already in 1987. He also generally puts a message to his fans about projects going on in a foreword or afterword. It’s just the way he has communicated to fans and built his worlds before the anime were even released.

Below is the back/front cover of one of his first 1987 self-published doujin, titled “Omatsuri Zenjitsi no Yoru“ / "Night of the Carnival" just like later TM!R special episode 7 and the Kajishima Onsen doujin series starting in 1998.

Not much is known about it, only 250 copies were made and MK himself had to borrow a fan’s copy to scan it for an anniversary CD. One was seen on auction asking around $700 usd.

After that, in the early 90s, he published individual pages in the Chosen Ame series before moving on.

Here are the major doujins series he contributed to (roughly chronological):

Chosen Ame (Ganso Sonodaya)

Nontan Project/Various (Nontan Project)

Omatsuri Zenjitsi no Yoru --Subtitle-- (Kajishima Onsen)

Ianryokou Toujitsu No Yoru (Kamidake Onsen)

Tenchi -IF- (Kajishima Onsen)

Various small smattering of others

Title (Circle):Title is the name of the individual doujin series or specific issue. (Circle is the publishing group, which, like Marvel Comics, can have mutiple series out at the same time.) Sometimes the two are the one and the same.

Nontan Project/Various (Nontan Project). 1994-1997, 2002.All the covers and many of the sketches (anime production content) seems to be MK's. But a few images and some of the extensive text might not be, perhaps there is some fanfiction. Tenchi.org confirms MK is not the only contributor on each one.

One exception might be Jun’s GXP, from 2002. It’s published much later than the other (Nontan Project) doujins and while many sketches are obviously his, Idk if the racy covers are drawn by MK. Possibly.

Omatsuri Zenjitsu no Yoru --Subtitle-- (Kajishima Onsen). From 1998 to present day. This doujin series is from MK’s own publishing circle and can be translated “Night Before the Carnival”, same exact title as the previous 1987 doujin and the renowned special episode 7 of the OAV.

This doujin series has always been all Masaki Kajishima content each and every issue and it will talk about his various series.

These are easily recognizable from the same big Kanji title used nearly every issue on the top of their cover pages with the various subtitles in the slanted box. The sub-titles will generally relate to the type of content or specific series he’ll cover in it. For example “Omatsuri Zenjitsu no Yoru Seikishi Ban” or “Omatsuri Zenjitsu no Yoru Tenchi Ban” will cover War on Geminar or Tenchi Muyo respectively.

Ianryokou Toujitsu No Yoru (Kamidake Onsen). From 2002 to 2013, sporadic releases.This series title can be translated to “Night of the Vacation”.

Issues 1-5 were filled with Hentai/ecchi pics from other artists so those pages are not canon, and MK’s contribution were all the series’ covers (coming from his previous Comiket booth art) and then the recognizable anime production sketches, perhaps a page with text about his projects. Issues 6-11 only have MK content.

So, for example, Ianryokou Issue #4 (NSFW!!!), the hentai images 4-50 are by the artists Chiba Dirou and Miyakawa Hajime, are not canon. Images 1-3, and 51-90 are the actual Masaki Kajishima content.

Tenchi -IF- (Kajishima Onsen). 2013-Present.Again, MK’s own publishing circle and all Masaki Kajishima content every issue. So far these have been the nicest for western fans as there has been minimal to translate. Example doujin.

Various (Various): Various Dates, mostly 1990s.The various known doujins MK contributed to is listed in the infographic. Most of them, like KNOCK OUT, seem to only have a page or two of his content.

About other Tenchi Fan Doujins (Various): Various Dates.I have gathered over 1500 pairs of front-and-back Tenchi doujin covers from Tenchi.org, it’s fair to say there are probably over 2,000 doujins out there with some Tenchi content, maybe even close to 3,000. Most of them date from Tenchi’s heyday in Japan, the mid-1990s.

Those are, of course, same in status like fanfictions are here. If you want to collect these, be aware that the cover is the best part and all too often the drawing quality of the content drops rapidly from there.

On Hentai.While MK has made Hentai series, I generally have not seen him produce much if any hentai content for his regular SFW series. For Tenchi Muyo, I only know of one exception, the infamous Omatsuri Zenjitsu no Yoru Omake Ban, which is tame as far as explicit content from Japan goes.

About the furthest he has gone with most of the Tenchi cast is nudity in characters you expect (Ryoko) and seems to be generally rather protective of some other characters, like Sasami and Tsunami.

(C??) labeling system.MK like many other artists sells his doujins only at Comiket. He releases between 1-3 new ones each show, typically 2.

Comiket started as a small trade show in December 1975 and generally has 2 conventions a year, in August and December. Last December (2016) was the 91st comiket, you will see those Doujins labelled as (C91) some places.